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Forte III


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The sound of these Forte IIIs is terrific. The high, mid and low range of sound is so much more complete, rich, full adjectives galore. Sure I'll move them some more, in a 12 x 12 bedroom now. Clarity and spaciousness of the mid and  high drivers is reminiscent of the "big  Klipsch" speakers. The bass is a lot better than my Heresy IIs. They obviously need to be in a bigger room. Bypassing the tone control on my amp, it was a new experience with Mick Jagger's Wandering Spirit and Heart's Magazine.                        

Get pics here after I rebuild my PC again. Woke to it doing that update bootloop again. Thanks to all of you that offered you knowledgeable opinions a few months ago.                                                                    

This was money well spent.  

If you've read about them and are thinking about them stop. Contact @MetropolisLakeOutfitters and get a pair or three. 

Edited by JohnJ
formatting messed up from the 6P
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On 7/6/2017 at 2:36 PM, adam2434 said:

 

Very interesting...I have RF-7 II and Forte I, and I consider the Forte I to be more "shouty" in the midrange.

 

I reeealy want to hear the Forte III...in my house!

 

 

Forte-I had exponential horns. The Forte-II and RF-7-II have tractrix. That shoutiness is inherent to the old exponential designs.

 

The Forte III is a step above tractrix and exponential - which Roy calls modified tractrix. The Forte III midrange also comes with mumps, which is yet another improvement on the modified tractrix.

 

The LF driver design has improved over the years too, so you'll get good bass with less modulation of the mids. I have no doubt that the Forte III should sound much better than a Chorus II. I would love to see a Chorus III version someday. I'd also like to see a 15" 2-way using Roy's mumps, but someone in Indy dropped the ball with "The Fifteens".

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6 hours ago, tester said:

 

What particular areas will the Forte III excel over the Palladium 37f? The Palladium has three 7" woofers vs one 12" for the Forte, would this mean lower distortion over the Forte in Freq below 500 hz? I would also think the three 7" woofers will be lighter and faster and translates to better transparency vs a possibly heavier single 12" woofer?

When it comes to the Klipsch speakers....the ones with the bigger horns sound better. The whole story of Klipsch is based on the idea of using horns to lower distortion and control polar response. Because physics is physics and the wavelengths of sound are fixed, bigger horns will load over a wider frequency range. The bigger it is, the lower it will go.

 

The Forte III midrange is a lot larger than the P37F. The P37F needs to use all those small drivers to try and cover the bandwidth that the horn isn't covering. The Forte III design doesn't need the 12" driver to go as high.

 

I think one thing a lot of people forget is that heavier cones are required to do better at lower frequencies. So if you don't need to go as high, then the low frequency improves - and the mids are improving because a horn is doing it instead of a direct radiator.

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3 hours ago, DrWho said:

When it comes to the Klipsch speakers....the ones with the bigger horns sound better. The whole story of Klipsch is based on the idea of using horns to lower distortion and control polar response. Because physics is physics and the wavelengths of sound are fixed, bigger horns will load over a wider frequency range. The bigger it is, the lower it will go.

 

The Forte III midrange is a lot larger than the P37F. The P37F needs to use all those small drivers to try and cover the bandwidth that the horn isn't covering. The Forte III design doesn't need the 12" driver to go as high.

 

I think one thing a lot of people forget is that heavier cones are required to do better at lower frequencies. So if you don't need to go as high, then the low frequency improves - and the mids are improving because a horn is doing it instead of a direct radiator.

 

Looking at the specs, the 37f is crossed over at 550hz and the Forte at 650hz.  So the 12 inch Forte III woofer is covering a wider range compared to the 37f. I may be reading the specs wrong, but I think that's what it means.  I know specs isn't everything, but it's what's available online. 

 

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I've just been goofing off with these tonight with some rap... yeah I know, deal with it... ;)  Anyway, I'm literally hitting peaks over 120 db on bass boosted material with only a 50 watt receiver in a 31x32 room with no sub.  It doesn't do that everywhere in the room but my seat is in a sweet spot.  Silly amounts of bass coming out of these things.  I have Jubilees and four 18's with 4,000 watts in the next room over so it's not like I don't know what nice bass sounds like either. :)  

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3 hours ago, DrWho said:

Woah....all these years I though the 396 was a 3-way design?


When did that change? No wonder Roy kept recommending the 396. Doh!

 

That's a 2" throat on that horn though, right?

 

The KI-396-SMA-II is nice as hell, I just unofficially ordered a custom set for myself earlier.  Sound wise in a home theater with nice subs they are still my favorite.  

 

I think they still have the original 396 and use it as surrounds in IMAX theaters or something.  The SMA-II is where the magic is.  

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...I'm not entirely sure how you would hit 120db peaks at seating position with 50 watts.

The Forte III are 99db. To hit 120 at 1 meter you would need 128 watts...64 if we say both speakers playing the same thing which gives about 3db increase.

If we say you're about 9 feet back, that would be around 9db reduction, meaning you'd need around 500 watts to hit 120 at the seating position.

In a room that big I can't imagine a huge amount of room gain except at the lowest frequencies but perhaps I'm thinking about this all wrong...

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Room modes.  I'm not exactly sitting outside or in a chamber.  Plus that's peak instantaneous, not sustained.  It's up there regardless, but still.  C-weighted slow response max it's more like just under 110.  This is a calibrated microphone, not a phone app or something.  

eminem.JPG

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13 hours ago, tester said:

 

Looking at the specs, the 37f is crossed over at 550hz and the Forte at 650hz.  So the 12 inch Forte III woofer is covering a wider range compared to the 37f. I may be reading the specs wrong, but I think that's what it means.  I know specs isn't everything, but it's what's available online. 

 

That's a good point, but I think that's blurring the water a bit. That small little horn on the Palladium line couldn't be loading that 4.5" driver much below ~1.5kHz.  That last octave and a half (550Hz to 1.5kHz) is being generated by a 4.5" driver. A 12" driver will do that range a lot better than a 4.5" one.

 

A single 12" driver has roughly 95 sq in of effective radiating area. Three 7" drivers will have closer to 85 sq in. The extra bandwidth required of that 12" driver is almost offset by the difference in radiating area.

 

Also, the MF of the Forte III is going to do the range of 650Hz and up a lot better than the Palladium too.

 

Btw, both speakers sound good....I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if the Forte III was perceived as sounding better.

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The bass is dynamic, deep, and warm in my living room listening space. The Forte III's just keep wowing me as I test them with various genres and formats of music.

 

Late last night I was listening to the Sirius satellite radio hip hop music channels plugged in from my iPhone. (The worst source I'll ever listen from). And, It sounded VERY nice.

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Curious anyone own both the new Forte III & the Forte II's; and have shared their impression of how they sound?

Not unlike many of you, I fell in love with the finishes of Forte III. I don't doubt that I would love to have them. Simply need to resolve the outlay vs how much more pleasure I may gain.

If I had own Forte I's first, couldn't see replacing them, to buy the Forte II.

I suspect that the difference to the III is greater improvement. Hopefully a dealer or forum member nearby will have the Forte III and be kind enough to let us have a listen.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, BlueHusky79 said:

I fell in love with the finishes of Forte III.
 

 

There's somewhat of a secret with the new cherry ones.  They aren't staining these like the other heritage, it's going to be natural cherry with a clear coat.  Should look sharp and modern.  The other heritage items can now be custom ordered with this finish but if not specified they will be stained with the standard tint except for Forte.  

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36 minutes ago, MetropolisLakeOutfitters said:

 

There's somewhat of a secret with the new cherry ones.  They aren't staining these like the other heritage, it's going to be natural cherry with a clear coat.  Should look sharp and modern.  The other heritage items can now be custom ordered with this finish but if not specified they will be stained with the standard tint except for Forte.  

 

When you say stained do you mean oiled?

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